Past and Future
by tempest10
Summary: In a modern Mossflower, no one really knows or cares about the old Redwall building or the mouse on an ancient tapestry. Besides, the past isn't that important... is it? Oneshot.


"C'mon, Marty, don't be a spoilsport. It'll be fun."

"Well… I dunno."

"When are they going to fix these lights? They're so bright I can hardly see."

"Hey! I need that report now; the boss is gonna blow his top if it's not on his desk in fifteen minutes."

"I can't _believe_ there's three more hours 'til quitting time."

The last was moaned by a small, grey-furred mouse with her head lying on a desk. "I hate my job." she muttered. All around her there was shouting and talking, about things pertaining to work, things marginally connected to the job, and things… well, other things. She raised her head and stared muzzily at the report. _Why do I even bother?_ She scrawled a few more words, erased them, and wrote something else. What was she supposed to be writing about, anyway? Spending, maybe? Was it an expense report? Whose expense report? Gina went on that trip last month; it might be hers. Gina got all the breaks, getting to go on a business trip. It must be better than sitting here day after day, doing nothing important. What must it be like to enjoy your job?

She suddenly realized it had been twenty minutes and she'd done nothing but scribble _I'm so bored_ over and over on a graph showing profit and loss in the third quarter, whatever that was. Did it even exist? She could imagine an office, somewhere, filled with happy, well-paid, animals laughing hysterically as they made up these graphs. _Wow_, they'd say to each other, _They must be idiots to think these graphs have actual _data_ in them._

She looked up at the clock again. Now it's just two and a half more hours 'til quitting time.

Oo00oO

Finally, the interminable workday was over. Pouring out of the office with everyone else, she let out a sigh of relief.

"Hey, Letty!" A slim hedgehog in pink sunglasses and a nervous-looking black-furred rat made their way up to the mouse.

'Letty' forced a smile. "My name's Leticia. Please call me that."

The hedgehog giggled. "Aw, Leticia sounds so stiff."

"Please? How'd you like it if I called you…" Leticia paused for a moment. "Delly, Delilah?"

Delilah pursed her lips. "Hmm, I like that. Call me Delly!"

The mouse groaned. "Don't you have a serious bone in your body?"

The rat, who until now had been a silent observer to this dialogue, spoke up hesitantly. "Shouldn't we be going? Tam said he'd meet us in front of the library in an hour from now, and it'll take that long just to get there."

The newly-christened Delly sighed. "Alright Maisy, lets go. And this 'Tam' of yours had better have a good offer."

Leticia snorted. "_Any_ offer is good enough for me. I can't wait until I can quit my job."

"Aww, it's not so bad! Although this Tam fellow must want to hire us pretty bad, to go to all that trouble. I mean, we haven't even met the guy. It's been all cloak and dagger; asking us to meet him in front of a library instead of in an office and wanting to hire all three of us at once! It's a lucky break, I suppose."

As Delilah babbled on, Leticia wondered how three creatures so different had got to be such fast friends. Delilah was so bubbly, coming up with nicknames, talking a blue streak and wearing those ridiculous glasses. She wasn't flaky at all though; despite her small size she was dependable as a rock.

Maisy was quiet. She liked to read. And that was all Leticia really knew about her. Of course, she had her own life. She occasionally talked about a boyfriend, a fondness for cooking, and other hobbies. Now she'd come up with a job offer from someone who 'well, I don't what he does exactly, but he's okay. I'm not sure what the job is, but I'm _sure_ it's nothing, y'know, _bad_, right?'

And herself? Well, she hated her job, shared an apartment with an undependable fox who stayed out late and couldn't be counted on to pay his half of the rent, and was about to meet someone she'd never met before to talk about a suspicious job.

Well, they say opposites attract. Besides working in the same place, Leticia couldn't think of a single thing they all had in common.

While she was thinking, they'd been walking. Now, looking up, she realized they were in front of the Redwall Library.

Just looking at the place gave her a sense of awe. It had been built hundreds of years before. It had passed from an abbey, to a fortress, to a seat of government and now it was a library. The whole place had been fixed up many times, restored and rebuilt, so that she supposed the original occupants (whoever they were) wouldn't recognize the place. You could still see the red sandstone it was made from, and the ancient trees in the courtyard (a reminder of the days this city was just a forest), and the famous rose bush by the door. When you went by the roses you tugged your ears in respect. No one knew why, it was just a tradition, a little game. Sometime, those roses must have been important. Now they were just a plant.

Leticia shook her head to clear it, smoothing her whiskers down. No time for these reveries. The past was the past, that's all. It wasn't coming back.

Maisy looked a little worried. "He's not here. We should check inside."

The trio made their way through the courtyard (once it had all been enclosed. Now only three walls surrounded the back and sides of the building. The front wall had been torn down, perhaps by a conquering warlord, maybe by a city planner deciding a street should go there instead) and into the front lobby of the building. The vaulted roof had been shored up when it was in danger of falling; the stained glass windows had been replaced when rainstorms or fallen branches broke them; and the huge room had been filled with rows of desks and shelves. Except, of course, the back wall.

Leticia moved toward the other end of the room, the others following, craning their heads for a glance of the mysterious Tam. The mouse just walked up to the velvet ropes that never kept anyone really determined away and just stared. She'd seen it before, of course. Everyone had.

The back wall of the library was covered with a huge tapestry. Despite numerous restorations, the cloth was threadbare, and the designs were faded. Still, this was a thing of beauty. It showed a brown-furred mouse in armor, leaning on a sword. The expression on his face was wooden, though it must have been much better when the tapestry was younger. Repeated rethreading and examination by those much less skilled than the ones who embroidered it in the first place had done it no favors. In the background foxes, rats, weasels, ferrets, stoats and a wildcat fled with expressions of terror.

"Rank speciesism." muttered an elderly ferret who was examining the embroidery. "Of course, it's a _mouse_ that's driving all the scary vermin away."

Leticia paid him no attention, but focused her attention on the edges of the tapestry. Here, myriad scenes depicted what she supposed were scenes of life in the times in which it was made. A family of hedgehogs building a house…mice baking bread…weasels standing in ranks like an army…

She frowned. Of course it was speciesism, the arbitrary dividing line between 'woodlander' and 'vermin'. It was still going on today. It was illegal of course, but there were still places that you would be served last in a restaurant, or fired from a job because you were a fox or a rat. Her roommate always went on about that, saying it was why he couldn't get a job. She told him he couldn't get a job because he had no work ethic. He had said that was a typical mouse response.

Finally she looked up at the title. It was one word. Martin. There had been squabbles all throughout academia about who this Martin really was. Was he really a warrior, as he appeared to be in the illustration, or was he some type of warlord or king? Did he ever actually visit the abbey, as it had been back then? The general consensus was that the tapestry either predated the construction of the building and was hung not to honor Martin but simply as a decoration, or that it was of a conqueror of the building and had been put up many years into its lifetime.

Of course a few creatures, scholars or nut jobs mostly, said that Martin founded the building or was involved in its construction. The scholars cited old legends about a mysterious warrior who defeated a tyrant to build a building dedicated to peace. This building began as an abbey, they said, dedicated to peace. The legends don't tell us this warrior's name, but isn't it clear he is it?

The nut jobs cited old documents claiming that a hidden 'founder's tomb' held great treasure and was hidden somewhere in the building. They assumed that Martin was the founder and arrived early in the morning searching for codes and symbols in the tapestry and then going off making a nuisance of themselves trying to 'investigate' the attics or something. None of them seemed to know or care that any 'great treasure' in the building would have been found centuries ago, by those who actually knew what they were doing.

The old ferret who was standing besides her gave her a toothy smile. "You don't look like those treasure hunters, but you look intense enough to be. You like old art?"

Leticia smirked. "Not particularly. Some friends and I are waiting for someone, but he hasn't shown up yet." She sighed. "Maybe I'm just waxing philosophical, but doesn't it seem a little depressing? That this Martin, whoever he was, was important enough to get this big tapestry and now it's just a dusty thing in a library with a lot of experts poking at it."

The ferret took a deep breath, but before he could say anything, Maisy was there with Delilah in tow. "Tam!"

Leticia frowned. "This is Tam?"

Tam leaned forward. "Allow me to introduce myself. The name is Tamari Tussock, Tam to my friends. You must be Letty?"

Delilah broke in "No, she wants to be called _Leticia_ all prim and fancy. I'm Delly." She grinned and held out a paw.

Tam shook hands. "Excellent, excellent. You'll be taking the job then?"

Maisy looked apprehensive. "You never said what the job was."

"I didn't?"

"No."

The ferret harrumphed and pushed his spectacles up on his muzzle. "My memory must be going." He looked around. "Let's not discuss it here."

They made their way to a table in a mostly deserted room housing encyclopedias. The only other occupant was a hare in a window seat who seemed totally absorbed in reading the huge tome in front of him. The four sat down.

Tam smiled at them all and said without preamble "I have a time machine. I will pay you to come with me to the past, to the founding of Redwall, and hopefully, to meet Martin."

He continued beaming as if unaware of the lunacy of his statement.

Maisy took a deep breath. "Wouldn't you and I just be killed as soon as we got there? That was a really dangerous part of history, with a lot of speciesism going on too."

"Leave that to me."

Leticia shot Maisy a glance. The rat shrugged. She began "Even if I believe you have a _time machine_ why would I even go with you? I don't know anything about history, but I do know that Martin probably wasn't even around when Redwall was built."

"Everyone says that, but I have some evidence." Tam rummaged around in a battered briefcase and pulled out a sheet of old parchment. He opened it and spread it on the table. Everyone leaned in to read what it said.

Delilah spoke up. "I can't read that. It's in another language. How do you know what it says?"

"I know what it says. I won't read the whole thing to you, but I'll tell you the relevant parts." He pointed to one section filled with crabbed writing and began to read "' Today we laid the cornerstone for our new building. It will be an abbey large enough to house many hundred and strong enough to defend them from vermin attacks. We have been using red sandstone from a quarry to the northeast. Our resident warrior has been very helpful, looking over plans and designs. Yesterday Martin told me- ' You see? Martin!" Tam continued reading "' –Martin told me to make sure- ' well, gets pretty illegible from here on out but I'm sure you understand." He grinned again, a gesture that, among other things, was starting to grate on Leticia's nerves.

She stood. "Alright, I don't know what your game is. If that _thing_" she gestured at the parchment "is really that old it should be in a museum or something. Fine, it says 'warrior' and 'Martin' but it doesn't even say they're the same animal!" She was speaking fast now, hardly caring how she sounded. "The world was very dangerous back then. There were probably thousands who claimed the title 'warrior'. Martin is a very common name now; it could have been so back then. It's interesting, I'll grant you that, but we have _nothing_." Leticia suddenly realized that she had been standing up and shouting. Everyone was staring at her in disbelief, including the hare in the window seat that quickly turned back down to his volume of the encyclopedia, muttering "lunatics" as he did so. Leticia's felt her skin turn red under her fur.

"Sorry," she muttered, hastily sitting down. "I've been under a lot of stress…" She looked up again. "But what I said is true. You've got nothing." She pushed her chair back. "I'm leaving. Have fun on your rotten snipe hunt."

Before anyone else could say a word, she fled down the stairs. When she reached the main hall, she stopped and looked at the tapestry. The stupid tapestry. It was nothing, just shapes on fabric. She looked away.

She hardly remembered the way home, just the thoughts that were swirling around in her brain. _Did they really believe that nut? Does he really believe _himself_? _How_ could they believe him? He said he had a time machine, for crying out loud!_

Now she was at the door to her apartment. She tried the knob, and then yanked it hard. It was locked. She tried her purse. No key.

Filled with frustration, she kicked the door. It felt good. She kicked it again, harder. It opened and she stormed inside.

"Hey, who're you? This is Drake's apartment…"

She turned and grabbed the speaker, a male badger, by the front of his shirt. "No, this is _my_ apartment, and his name isn't Drake, its Tom. Where is the deadbeat anyway?"

The clearly frightened badger gestured towards the next room. "He- he's asleep in there. Hey, c'mon, he told me this was his place. I didn't know."

"Get out of here before I call the cops."

With the badger scrambling towards the doorway, she stalked into the next room. Tom was slumped on the floor, his mouth open and paws askew. She walked right through.

As she fell into bed, the last thing she thought before sleep was _why? Why? Why? Why…_

Oo00oO

The next morning, bright and early, she was at the office. Tom was gone by the time she'd woken up, leaving an envelope labeled 'Rent' and containing $5.76 and a dead bee. She'd thrown the bug out the window and used the cash to buy coffee. Now she was staring at the clock, dead tired, and wondering when the caffeine would kick in.

All of a sudden she sat up. Delilah and Maisy weren't in the office today.

She relaxed. She just hadn't seen them, that's all. Nothing to be worried about.

She got up from her desk and asked around. They didn't come in today.

Now she was worried. Had that crazy ferret kidnapped them? Nah, the old thing didn't look like he could kidnap a fly. Had they all gone on some weird trek and had gotten lost? Or maybe-

"Hey, did you lose power last night too?"

"Nah, but I heard a bunch of places did over on your side of town. Anyone hurt?'

"No one I know, but a house burnt down."

"What?! Whose?"

"The fire department said it looked like a blown circuit. Sparked, hit something flammable, and whoosh, the whole place is gone. House was a wreck, anyway. About time someone burned it down."

"I'll say! My sister lives a few blocks down and said it was an eyesore, and that the city should condemn it."

"Y'know what I think? I'd bet that 'blown circuit' caused the whole out!"

"Yeah, the guy who lived there was always fiddling with machines. He was this real old ferret, probably senile by now."

Letitia's ears perked up. She had been listening to the conversation lackadaisically, but this was interesting. She listened some more.

"Yeah, he was insane. Always going on to anyone who'd listen about the mouse on the tapestry down at Redwall- any of you seen it?"

"Once or twice. I took my kid."

"He thought the guy founded the library, or I guess it was an abbey or something back then. He was gonna- get this –build a _time machine_ and go back to meet him. That's probably what he was doing yesterday. Trying to time travel."

Leticia had heard enough. _So that's that. My friends have blown themselves sky-high with a senile old ferret. I was smart to stay back._

"Did the ferret get blown up?"

"Guess not. The fire department said they didn't find any remains. He was probably doing an overnighter with the tapestry. Boy, will he be surprised to find out his house is gone!"

There was laughter, but Leticia heard none of it. No remains, that was good. _I guess they listened after all_. But they didn't show up to work. And a blown circuit- that couldn't happen on its own. Someone had to flip the switch. Someone who wasn't there afterwards…

Leticia buried her head in her paws. She'd never know_ now_, would she?


End file.
